The Fastest Way to Kill Someone
by O.o rawwr
Summary: Shad&Amy A "accidental suicide" pulls two hedgehogs together to keep their secret love safe. Meanwile, some are suspicious of the tragic happening and come to investigate. Will the two kill again to keep their secret, or maybe something more?
1. Prologue

_Okay people, this is a first story for me. I like criticism, since my grammar needs a serious kick in the rear. But try to make it nothing heartbreaking! I am very busy with school so I will update whenever I possibly can. However, I like the plans I have for this story so I will probably be ignoring some of the more important things around me to, instead, be bent over my keyboard to type._

_--Enjoy._

_(PS: it's in Shadow's POV)_

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**Prologue **

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_How can people's lives look so great and still be foul underneath?_ Was the question I always asked myself every time I looked into her eyes. She seemed to want me in only the way that people yearned for things that they can't have. It wasn't always like that, she seemed normal, happy, nice, and maybe even understanding of my past. But things changed, and changed did they. She became ravenous with something spoiled underneath, somehow it surfaced in her beautiful personality. Maybe it was something I did, maybe it was always there, I don't know. And I don't think I ever knew.

Perhaps that is why I am drawn to this place.

It didn't help sooth things in me. Coming to the abandoned library now was like putting a band aid on someone who was gored by a rhino. It was completely stupid. But somehow it had always struck a chord with me. We used to come here, we used to spend hours just to sit on these benches and pretend to read when all we did was stare at each other like a couple of third graders trying to get a eyeful of the other without the secret crush realizing it. I don't think I even remembered to flip the pages absentmindedly to make it _look _like I was actually reading.

That was our grand strategy. We would come to the library at the same time and meet in one of the back corners. It was a safe place. It was our place. No one would come looking for us there, all the bad stayed outside, and we loved it. It was deception, and it was the start to the end of a lot of things.

I walked past a collapsing bookshelf lost in thought. Everything around me was sleeping behind a filmy layer of greenish dust. The entire library was now a rotting heap of filth.

After some strange catastrophic damage that was caused without provocation, the city council declared that the library be shut down, all the books moved, and a new one be built on a separate block. Maybe it was for the greater good that this place was left to rot in hell, but I couldn't help but pick through the rubble of what was left of an ignorant past-life. After all, it used to be the center of my life.

Too bad my life died out of me right here not so long ago.

And the "strange damage"? Well, that's the climax of an even bigger story than my own.

I walked on.

The dust formed a strange smoky atmosphere in the gutted building. It was like a silk sheet pulled over a stage. As it swirled above my head it would play mind tricks on me. The dust was so thick in areas that it seemed to stay still in the air. The kind of stillness that would make you uneasy and your eyes would squint until your eyeballs felt like they would pop. But the stillness was not restful either, despite the deadness in the air. Sometimes when I came here I could almost hear Amy's graceful feet stepping in rhythm behind my own, or a sad face would form in a cloud of dust. I couldn't tell if it was the dust or just the last bit of my sane mind losing itself.

The mind was like the fog around me, sometimes it shows you want you want, but not what you need to see.

There was a loud crack in the air, almost like a gunshot. I whirled around, adrenaline knocking coldly throughout my veins. Looking at the floor I saw a book, dust was forming a fresh ring around it from it's fall off of the shelf. _Simple explanation: A book fell off of a rotting self, it happens Shadow. Calm down._

And I told myself that there could be a hundred reasons why I hallucinate sometimes.

I hope I am just crazy now.

Crazy people don't have to deal with the guilt of murder. Why? Plainly because they're crazy. But do they feel guilty if they watch another murder they could have prevented, would it register in their minds?

You want the story of Amy Rose's murder? Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell it to you from the very beginning...


	2. Tiny Wispers

_Okay, phew! I finally got this typed up. School has been really busy lately, it doesn't really make any sense though because I only have about eight days left. I guess everyone is scrambling to catch up on everything before we move on. Anyway, this chapter is mostly a basis of everything that will be going on in the story later on so it might seem a little long in the middle. But I couldn't make it any other way._

_--Enjoy!_

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**Chapter 1**

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_Sucks when you find that fly in the ointment, when the fun little roller coaster you were on suddenly gets stuck, when you watch your heart slip out of your grasp and hit the floor. _My mind was in a trance. I had been so preoccupied with my thoughts that I forgot to be flattered tonight when Rouge and Amy invited me as a sorry tag along for their supposed-to-be-girls-only dinner party.

"Hello Shadow, are you there?" Came Rouge's sarcastic voice, "are you all right? Oh jeez, he's spacing out again. Someone pinch him." I shook my head to bring me back to Earth and I suddenly found myself in a quaint little cafe sitting in front of two vivacious stares. Rouge was speaking to Amy like I wasn't there. Again.

"I don't know what's wrong with him lately. He's been all, like, depressed. And he's having trouble eating again, plus you should've heard the comment he made about Sonic the other day..." I thought it was a little game she liked to play. _Let's let him get a little too serene and then torture him, yippee._

"Shut it Rouge, he's just...preoccupied. Shadow will get himself out of whatever it is sooner or later. He always does." Said Amy. She always stuck up for me. She was, after all, a social master with people. After chiding Rouge a little more about my sanity she launched into a conversation about the right color dress to find at the mall to match her eyes. Rouge took the bait and began teaching Fashion 101 to an already educated Amy.

I looked at the plate filled with food. I was not hungry but Amy had bought me food anyway. I'd hate to disappoint her at lunch again._ No time to throw it out behind her back, eat fool._ I picked up the fork, and began scooping up salad with fat free dressing. It tasted like rubber.

"I don't know about a halter top. You would look _wayy_ better in a tube top, plus it doesn't leave those horrible tan lines." Rouge droned on while chewing on some rubber.

"_True. _I was thinking about a blue color, turquoise. You know, to match Sonic when we go out on our honeymoon. We were thinking about the beach."

"No way!"

"Yes way, and that's not the best part! He was mentioning something about, like, _Europe_." Amy squealed and Rouge gave her a complementary high five. The two girls began chattering about the travel arrangements. I stole a look at Amy, she seemed a lot more happier since her wedding with Sonic. Everything about her became more brighter, her thoughts circled around his happiness obsessively. Amy seemed to stand on her toes every time he needed her. She lived to please him.

And when she was not tending to Sonic's whims, she was busy scheduling things like this luncheon just to baby me.

A few months ago I was horror struck when I had came back to my "hometown" just to find a fat jewel on her ring finger. I holed myself up for days in Tails' workshop sleeping in cockpits and drowning in sadness that I missed out on my chance with her life. Until she dragged me outside and begged me not to be sad. That she was happy, and I should be too.

Over a year ago, before I left, Amy and I were together a lot. She had an obsession for finding broken people and sticking them back together though her charm. So she naturally stuck to me, and glued back my insides. And I quite nearly felt loved.

So where did I leave to?

Well, I wanted to satisfy myself and see the Earth everyone around me loves so much. I felt that answers to my depression lurked just outside the horizon I was on. So Amy helped me scrape some cash together and I departed by train after a teary goodbye from her at the station. I traveled across the nation and then took a small ship to Europe. I wasn't satisfied yet though. My answers were not all found.

Rarely spending more than ten dollars a day I toured where ever my heart took me. And even though I was homeless, poor, and hungry half of the time I loved that I was making my own decisions. And after spending more time on beaches than in museums I stupidly decided that I see Africa.

And the glory of hobo-traveling-free-spirit-Shadow dwindled down to hobo-traveling-free-spirit-Shadow-gets-sick-with-food-poisoning. After spending a week in a Godforsaken hotel in South Africa throwing up and cringing in pain, I literally ran back home to the rosy pink face that could make anything better.

She found me knocking on her newly married husband's door that night. And I greeted her by throwing up on Sonic right when he opened that same door. That was when I found out that I didn't have food poisoning after all. It was an acute case of _stomach worms_. But it was still great to see her after a year of hectic travel, no matter how bad I felt.

I was home.

And after another week of sitting in the backseat of her convertible traveling around the city getting me clean of an array of bizarre diseases I was parasite free.

I laughed a little to myself remembering her little jokes that cheered me up as she tried to make me eat for the past months. I still had trouble, but these lunches that she always bought helped to keep me on the right track.

The plate was now almost clean of rubber plant leafs. I put the fork down feeling like my stomach would implode. Amy sensed my discomfort and reached over to pat me on the back.

"You're doing really great with the whole eating thing Shadow, no matter what Rouge says about it. Believe me." She whispered into my ear while Rouge was still talking. I guess that was why I liked her so much. I didn't have to even remotely pretend for her.

Rouge gathered her things, after leaving some final tips about the dangers of fake tanning. She could blather so much I didn't even know how the conversation headed to that direction.

"I swear tanning beds are okay, but the stuff you get out of the bottles is horrendous. I still have streaks from two weeks ago on my hands. Anyway, I'll give you a call later. I have to head down to the car dealership, I'm getting that new Honda today. Bye, hun." _Blah, blah, blah._

"Okay, I'll see you." Amy replied with a friendly wave. And Rouge, thank the Lord, headed out. Amy turned her attention to me once Rouge was out of earshot.

"I haven't seen you around for a while. How've you been, Shadow?" I had been giving her some breathing room since she had to get used to her new life with her new –_ gasp!_- husband. It was only fair.

"Okay, I've been staying at Tail's until I can get enough money together for my own apartment. You know, helping around with his inventions and buying nachos so he won't hate me for crashing on his couch for so long." Things between me and him were pretty agreeable. Tails spent most of his time in the garage which left me a lot of time to think.

"I can see that. Maybe you should stay with me and Sonic, I'd love to have another set of hands around to help move in. And besides, it would be really fun!" She smiled at the thought. I smiled too. But I knew the impossibility it. Sonic and me had grown out of deadly competition fights and settled for a friendship that was a little sour. Personally, I thought he only treated me better because he had Amy.

"Well...I don't know...you two did just get _married_, do you really think moving another guy in the house is going to be healthy for the relationship?" I teased giving her a look, and she laughed.

"It could make things a little more interesting." I smirked at her watching how her sparkling eyes almost took up her entire face. "Hey, I was wondering if maybe...well...would you like to in the library in an hour or two? I'll meet you there, in the regular spot."

This was strange.

We went to the library ages ago, before I got the itch to travel. We would spend hours in there talking about everything under the sun, and just soaking up each others company. It was a symbol of something that never really came to light, our secret relationship. Neither one of us had ever uttered the words "I like you, a lot" or the classic "I love you" but it was always there. Some sort of attraction. Real or not, our relationship was something not to be stirred again. But I said:

"Sure. I've got nothing to do."

"Great! I guess, I'll see you there!" She smiled shyly. There had to be a reason that she was asking me this, it could get me in a lot of trouble with _you-know-who_. But I would stick my neck out for Amy any day of the week. We continued talking about this and that, who did what, and what happened to who until her phone rang.

She snapped it open.

"Hello?...Oh hi, darling!...No I haven't seen-...Oh...Okay...I'll been there...Where am I at? Well, I'm down here at the cafe eating lunch...But I'll leave right now...See you soon...Love you too, bye." The phone closed with a flick of her wrist and she was already gathering her things.

"What was that about?" I asked watching with fascination at how dedicated she was to Sonic to just throw everything down and run straight home.

"Well, when we moved into the new townhouse a lot of things seem to go missing when you pack and unpack. So, he's missing something important and he was wondering if I saw it. I could just say no and leave him to look by himself but...you know, I don't want him to get stressed, or anything."

"Oh yeah, the world could end if Sonic gets a little stressed out about moving in." I said dryly, she shot me _The Look_.

"Hey, don't give me any of that! I have some responsibility now. And I just want things to go smoothly." She play fought with me as she dumped her food into the trash. I followed her out.

"Well, marriage is a lot of responsibility for _him,_ I have to give you some credit."

"Yeah. But anyway, I'll meet you at the library in," she paused to glance at her watch, "two hours. Got it, Mister I'm-guaranteed-to-be-late?" She chided, and I mock saluted.

"Yes ma'am." She laughed and turned her heels to the door.

For the next two hours I didn't feel like going to Tail's place, because I didn't want to have to explain where I'm going. So I ended up walking around the park nearby the library. The trail was wide and full of people that made too much noise, but there was no other place I could think of going. I glued my eyes to the sky and pondered for a while. When I got bored of that I began to look at the people around me. The Park was located near the center of the city so it was in the red zone of the artsy crowd. Everyone made it a sport of looking different than the rest.

There was an art of colors in their hair as humans walked past me. Blue, red, acid green and sometimes an occasional Mohawk would swim past me. Actors, musicians, artists, and anybody else who could make a living off of their inner problems would congregate here.

They made me feel at ease for some reason.

When my two hours were up I headed over to the library and took a seat in our secret spot. In was in the far corner of the library. The place where high schoolers would come to make out instead of study, because no one could see back there from the main desk.

And sure enough, Amy was there.

I found Amy with her button nose in a fashion magazine. She looked up at me with her sparkling eyes, and I felt like we were back in time. Before I had spent that year running away from the real world with a few bills in my hand, before she had that stupid ring on her finger, before she had responsibilities, before things were complicated and awkward. She felt it too, I could see it. And before we knew it, we were talking like we used to. Open about anything.

After a while she felt comfortable enough to stretch out on the bench and put her head in my lap. I stroked her hair absentmindedly. It would be treason on the outside world to do this, but in the safe confines of the library, everything was okay.

She told me about her life when I was away for that year. Tales of her absolute boredom while I was away in the world having "all the fun". She told me about how Sonic proposed to her in the classic way, a five star restaurant, expensive wine, and a new dress. She loved it, but it was secretly all too mundane for her. She was obsessive because she was afraid of his temper. She had lost her opinions in front of it. All she had was a house and a husband, and nothing else to turn to. Things started pouring out from places I didn't even know existed.

"I didn't know things were like that for you..." I stumbled through the words. I didn't know how to comfort people well. I never really had showed my compassionate streak toward anyone.

"Well, I'm not complaining, I have everything a million girls would kill for. It would be selfish to ask for anything else." My mouth twisted at her words.

"Yeah. But you are happy, right?"

"...Well, why wouldn't I be?" She twisted around to me while laying in my lap. Her eyes were curious. But there was something else in them too. Something I couldn't catch.

I went on anyway.

"It's just that, uhm, some people can have what they_ think_ is the perfect life. But things can be secretly foul underneath. And they don't want to think about it, because that would be facing the truth."

"That's dumb. Why would you think that about people?" She said, denial was plain in her voice. Maybe she was a victim of what I was saying. After seeing the opening I had to press further.

"Did you know that most people are scared of their own thoughts? A person who wants to believe in something sometimes hides their feelings of it because it's just easier to accept a lie. Sometimes the truth can be a little hard to believe in, you know? Convenient thinking is what it's called. They change their beliefs just so they can be comfortable in a lie."

She let out a little breath that wasn't meant for me to hear. I pretended that I didn't. Maybe I was doing the wrong thing. But if there was any doubts in her mind about her life I had to knock them down. She did it for me, why wouldn't I return the favor? It could be a very dangerous thing if she didn't know what to do about the life she was starting.

"You know Amy, sometimes people have told themselves something for such a long time they begin to believe it."

"Yeah. That's really sad. I just...I don't know." She still wasn't facing me, and to cover her distress further she buried her face into my chest. White fur poked around her ears in a cute way despite the urgency in her voice.

"I can't believe I'm going to tell you this, but I feel like I have to," she said into my fur, I started to deject what she had said, but she talked over my words. "Maybe I've been hunting after Sonic for so long, I forgot what I was looking for. I didn't _really_ know what to say when he proposed, just that when you see a diamond like that in your face your supposed to yell out 'yes' like you'll never see one again. I was really, truly scared." She trembled between words. With nothing to say to help, I held her tightly.

"Maybe I'm 'conveniently thinking' about this marriage. I'm too scared to give up on the life I have now because I'll never know if I'll get a second chance at it again"

I was shocked at what I had brought to light. I didn't know if it was good or bad, but either way there was no option of hiding it now.

"The whole world is full of smoke and mirrors, Amy."

She nodded, shell shocked. I pulled her up and began to get us moving out of the library with some stupid excuse about being late to help Tails. Honestly, she just looked like she needed fresh air. Her face was as white as a ghost.

And I was right.

Once the first mouthful of fresh air from the outside world was pulled into her mouth she was all business. Amy pulled a straight poker face, and I wondered if she was truly alright. Thinking she might need assistance I walked her home, cheering her up with jokes that I had heard on TV and some funny stories I had heard from other people. I wasn't the one for comedy, but I could try at least.

After a couple awkward stories about my past medical treatments for my "_overseas conditions_" she cracked a smile.

And who is the winner to the cheer-up game? _Shadow._ Oh yeah.

I basked in my glory by playing off my confidence until she was laughing. And before I knew it we were back at her townhouse.

It was the regular American Dream. White shudders on the windows, a red door, a shiny paint coat, even a small bird bath in the front patch of grass, the whole nine yards. I thought about the crappy cot I slept on in Tails' garage and grimaced at the fresh cut grass.

"You don't look so good," Amy noted looking at my half concealed scowl towards the shrubbery, "would you like to come inside? I made some lemonade this morning, it's in the fridge."

"Umm, no thanks." I said flatly, a place like this just wasn't healthy for me.

"You sure? I mean, I feel like you're avoiding our house sometimes. Every time I ask you to come in or stay, it's the same reaction." I flinched, the words weren't meant to be spiteful but it hit me in a way I couldn't explain.

"Is Sonic here? I don't want to get in the middle of anything..." I said shoving excuses out of my mouth.

"Nope. It's blue hedgehog free. I left for the library after giving him a few tickets to see a game." _So the meeting at the library was planned beforehand. Interesting. Maybe she needed to tell me those things._

"Well, if you insist. Jeez, are you always so pushy?" I said trying to play off of my – now dwindling – confidence. She snickered and shoved me playfully.

"_Doyee._ How else am I supposed to get anyone to do anything around here?" She pulled out some pink covered keys and jiggled with the lock for a few moments. Her enthusiasm was almost smugly victorious.

The inside of the townhouse had that "new" smell to it. Styrofoam packaging was heaped in small piles around partially unpacked items. A cabinet here, a couple of figurines over here, a few pieces of furniture, and a massive pile of cardboard boxes shoved in a far corner that threw the entire portrait out of whack.

"It's that-a-way." She said while pointing a dainty finger towards a gleaming kitchen. And soon enough I was sitting at a breakfast table sipping on some lemonade and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my favorite from the _old days, the good days_.

"So what do you think?" She said to me as she polished a few glasses that were freshly pulled from a box on the counter.

"It's very...nice,"_ quaint, simple, stereotyped, it's a lot of things that aren't my style,_ "in an...uhm...suburban housewife way. Not anything bad, just, kind of, too 'down to Earth' for me." The glass she was polishing clinked on the counter sharply, she picked up another one running the rag around the rim. I watched her progress. This house wasn't her style at all, I bet she didn't even like it.

"Yeah, that's what I thought when I first saw it. Sonic loved it, he said it made him feel like he was complete. No more running around saving the world, you know?" I began to feel a charge in the air after she said that. What prompted him to settle? Sonic, the free spirit, the hedgehog that couldn't be tamed, is suddenly a husband with a mundane lifestyle and a housewife. A few years ago that would seem like a bad horror film for him._ 'The whole world is full of smoke and mirrors.' _Something had seriously changed with him.

"I have to ask you," actually I couldn't help but to ask, "what made Sonic quit?"

"Quit what?" Amy said brightly, picking up another glass. The polishing made me nervous, as if she were putting all of her concentration into it not to hurl it across the room. What I had said at the library had a profound affect on her, but she was hiding it well.

"Smashing robots, and running around like a crazed loon. You know, the stuff he's good at."

"I don't know what really made him stop. It was a personal choice of his. I wanted him to be happy. And if he wants a house that I don't have a taste for, fine. As long as he wants me. That all that matters." She picked up another glass, her fingers were twitching like she wanted to crush it.

It hit me then.

_She really doesn't want to move in with Sonic. She doesn't like the house. She wants me over all the time for support so she can bear all of it, that's why she keeps asking for me to come in. That's why she planned to meet at the library. She doesn't want to be alone._ The sandwich I was eating turned to mush in my mouth, I couldn't taste it anymore. Oh hell, here we go again. Time to fish around for some evidence of foul play between them.

"You have to know what made him quit, Amy. For Chrissake you two are _living _together."

"Yeah...well he just told me that all he wanted was something he never had, and it was me."

"Good answer." I said, not buying it. It was something bigger, it _had_ to be. Sonic wouldn't give up on a reckless life just like that. But Amy took my reply the wrong way.

"Oh be quiet!" Amy retorted. I stuck my tongue out at her in a childish way to lighten the atmosphere and she slapped me with her polishing rag. I wiped my face off, she had left a streak of grime across it. _Gross._

"Hey, don't get defensive now. You might just kill me." I feigned innocence and she smirked at me, still slightly miffed.

"Pff, if you weren't my friend you wouldn't stand a chance." She threw a few punches in the air around my head, just for good measure against my attitude.

"Hey now, sweet wives that live in snug suburban homes don't fight." I wagged a finger at her.

"Like hell they don't." She said snubbing the light atmosphere. I frowned at her but didn't address the subject, it was obviously something private.

The friction between us reminded me that it was time to escape now. I checked the kitchen clock, It was a little late. Amy followed my gaze, and her sad eyes gave her away. She knew what I was thinking and I knew what she was thinking. She didn't want me to leave. I didn't want to go.

We knew each other too well.

"I have to go." I choked out before I couldn't.

"Okay, Shadow." She replied flatly. The final glass she had in her hands slipped off the counter and crashed on the floor with a splash of shards. The noise ringed in the air ominously. We both moved a second too late. I headed out of the door eagerly after she convinced me that she could clean up the mess by herself.

_It was wrong to burn my life down like I did,_ I thought as the door closed behind me, _I didn't just affect myself, I hurt her too. She wouldn't be as screwed up on the inside right now if it wasn't for my stupid choice to leave_. I didn't look to my left or my right as I walked on, the cold air was against my cheeks sticking like pins and needles. I wrapped my arms around my chest and felt my breathing accelerate against the winds.

Here comes the fall.

Sometimes in this city the day can get hot but when the sun sets the colder wind kicks up. And girls that wore their skimpy tops the day before have to rush for their winter parkas the next morning. Fall crept up on this city without warning and I was caught in the middle of it.

Like the way I get caught in the middle of everything.  
The middle of fights.  
The middle of good relationships.  
The middle of countries at war.

I was always playing the neutral card around people. _And it's getting me into a hell of a lot of trouble._

A gust ruffled my fur and sent chills through my bones. And I felt myself running, my arms thrusting out like I would take flight. Willing the cold to strike me. And soon I was flying on my feet through the streets. Cold wind numbed my limbs but I could still feel my muscles twined with bone pulling and pushing me through the streets towards Tails' house. I was running away. Away from Amy. Maybe if I just wasn't present in her life things wouldn't be secretly lined with sour thoughts.

Maybe I was conveniently thinking, now.

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_Thanks for reading! Please review. It's not that hard.  
Promise._

_:)_

_All are responded to._


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